Seaweedbrain's Proposal
by Alexanderj
Summary: The title is pretty self evident.


Percy's POV

"Hey, Annabeth?"

She looked up from her laptop at me curiously. "Hmm?"

Annabeth was lying across my bed sideways, propped up on her elbows, typing up a history essay on her laptop. I was perpendicular to her, with my head resting on my pillow and my feet propped up using her back as a footrest, which she didn't appreciate at first but had since decided that she didn't really mind.

"Are you almost done?"

"For the fourth time, Percy, I'll be done in about 20 minutes." She went back to her Laptop and was about to start typing when I interrupted again.

"But Annabeth," I whined, "you said the same thing three minutes ago.

She sighed in exasperation. "Yes, and if you don't stop interrupting me the twenty minutes are never going to end."

"Okay, fine." I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, letting her go back to her work. What felt like hours later I opened them and looked at the dark blue digital clock on my nightstand and saw that it had been…two minutes and forty two seconds—gods, I hate ADHD.

I tried to occupy myself by looking around the room, so of course I ended up just staring at Annabeth. I noticed the way her right hand propped up her chin while she was thinking, her pointer lying across her upper lip. I saw the way her eyebrows furrowed and her left foot started tapping to some unknown beat. I watched the rise and fall of her back as she breathed, and how her hair caught the sunlight through the window and glinted gold. I wondered how I could have gotten so lucky.

When she felt my gaze and turned her head towards me, when my sea-green eyes caught her grey, and I saw the happiness in them, matched by her gorgeous smile, it hit me for the thousandth time how much I love her.

"Percy…"

I mean, I love everything about her: the way she can talk for hours about architecture even though she has ADHD; the way she teases me when I do something stupid; the fact that she is both as smart as Athena and as beautiful as Aphrodite.

"Percy?"

Even the little things about her make my heart race. I love the way that one strand of hair always comes loose from behind her ear and she has to constantly push it back, and how when she's angry her eyes look like a storm-cloud, and when she's calm and happy they sparkle like the sun shining through the clouds, but how they are always, at all times, thinking an calculating. I love the way she laughs. I love the way she talks. Heck, I even love the way she sleeps. And don't even get me started on her kissing.

"PERCY!"

"Wh-What?" I suddenly broke out of the trance I was in and caught Annabeth's eye. She didn't look angry, just a little amused.

She laughed at my flustered state and asked, "Why were you staring at me?"

"What? Is a guy not allowed to stare at his gorgeous girlfriend?"

She blushed a little at the compliment. "You are, but you were also thinking about something. What is it?"

"It's nothing."

She frowned.

"Really, it's nothing, just go back to work so you can be done already."

"Okay, fine, but when I'm finished you're going to tell me what you were thinking about." She turned her attention back to her homework and started absentmindedly twirling the ever-present grey streak in her hair, a constant reminder of the past.

When Annabeth was kidnapped, I was devastated. I felt miserable, and guilty, and lonely, and most of all determined. I _would_ get her back no matter what. When they told me I wasn't allowed on the quest, it wasn't a matter of whether I would listen, or go out to save her on my own. I was going to save her. The only question was the best way to do it.

The trip gave me a lot of time to think, and since I couldn't get Annabeth out of my mind, most of the thinking was about her. You know how they say you never fully appreciate something until it's gone. Well, there is some truth to that statement. Not having Annabeth near me, and not even knowing if I would ever see her again, made me realize just how much I cared about her. It was at that point, that I realized that I loved her. In fact, I had been in love with her for a long time. I don't know exactly when it happened, just that it was sometime between the end of our first quest and the day she was kidnapped. There was no denying it anymore. I, Perseus Jackson, was undeniably and irrevocably in love with Annabeth Chase. It took me two years, a war, the deaths of multiple friends, and each of us nearly dying hundreds of times for me to finally admit it, but I had fallen in love.

But then, when Annabeth took the dagger for me and she was lying in a hospital bed, her life again in question, I realized that it was more than just love. As I sat there, looking down at her pale sweat-beaded face, I felt guiltier than I ever had before. _How could I have let this happen? Why did she have to take that knife for me? How did she know that was my Achilles heel? How could I let her do this? Next time, I'm going to be the one to save her life. Next time, she'll be the one by my bedside, as I'm possibly dying, crying, and praying to all the gods she knows that I will survive._ All these thoughts were running through my head, and I knew then and there that if Annabeth died, I would die right along with her. I couldn't live without her anymore. It was too late for that. She had become a part of me, and without her I could never survive.

Then, after the war was over, Annabeth kissed me and we were thrown into the lake. In there I made an air bubble for us and we stayed down there kissing for a long time. When we were finally done, she sat in my lap with her head resting under my chin and playing with my hands in her lap and we talked. We talked about Luke, and the war, and Silena, and Beckendorf, and all of the other fallen heroes. And then we finally talked about us. I told her how much I loved her, and how I couldn't live without her, and she told me that she felt the same way. And then we kissed some more, until we decided that it was probably time to head back up. Now I had just turned eighteen, and Annabeth was going to in a couple of months, and we had been happily dating for two years. (well, except for the time that I had been kidnapped by Hera and had my memories erased)

I looked at my watch again. Two more minutes had passed.

"Wise Girl…?"

"What is it this time Seaweed Brain?" Annabeth asked, slightly irritated.

"I love you."

She sighed in exasperation. "I love you too, Percy, but can I _please_ get back to my work."

"Fine"

This time I thought about the future. I wondered what the rest of our lives would bring us. I thought about the older demigods I saw in New Rome at Camp Jupiter and wondered if I would ever live to be that age. I remembered seeing adults, in their mid thirties or forties, married, with kids, and wondered if Annabeth and I would ever be like that. Maybe someday we could be parents, taking our kids to Camp Half Blood for the first time. I hoped so. I didn't know what I wanted the rest of my life to be like, but I knew that whatever it was, I wanted Annabeth to be a part of it.

I was broken out of my thoughts once again by the feeling of Annabeth moving from under my feet so I looked at her to see her close up her laptop, obviously done with her homework, and crawl over to me. She lay down next to me and curled up into my side. I put my left arm around her and brought her closer and she rested her head on my shoulder and wrapped her arms around me. I closed my eyes and smiled, and heard her sigh in contentment. We stayed like that in comfortable silence for a few minutes until I finally broke it.

"Annabeth…"

"Yeah?"

"Let's get married."

She didn't respond, which was making me extremely nervous.

"Annabeth?"

She was silent for a few more minutes. "You're not joking? You seriously want to get married?"

"Yes"

"When?"

"I don't know, how about when you turn eighteen in two months?"

She looked up at me, eyebrows raised, her storm-grey eyes filled with thought. "You're serious." She said, more as a statement than a question but I felt the need to answer anyway.

"Yes, we've established that. I'm being completely serious. I mean, I know we're young: heck, we're just starting senior year and I don't even have a ring yet, but we're demigods, we could die at any time and tend to live shorter lives than mortals which means that we have to do everything faster and I love you and I know I want to spend the rest of my life with you so I thought, might as well get married, and now you're probably going to think I'm crazy or something and—"

"Yes"

"I knew it. Now you think I'm some crazy idiot and—"

"No Seaweed Brain, Yes."

I looked at her confusedly.

I mean, yes yes. Yes, I'll marry you. Gods, Percy relax. Of course I'll marry you."

It took a few seconds to process but then I broke out in the biggest smile I have ever had. I couldn't believe it. Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, the smartest and most beautiful girl in the world, and the love of my life, just agreed to marry me. I kissed her with more passion than I had ever before and she smiled into my lips and responded equally. And we kissed, and kissed, until we were both panting and out of breath and she lay down in my arms with her head in my chest and her arms wrapped around my waist.

The moment was so perfect that I never wanted it to end. I could have stayed in that position for years without getting tired of it. I was getting married. Six years ago I was just another scrawny little twelve-year-old kid, whose biggest worry was flunking out of Latin class. Now I had fought monsters and gods and titans and saved the world a few times, and was about to get married to the girl of my dreams. It all seemed so unreal.

I just lay there thinking for another few minutes before I was interrupted again.

"Hey Percy…"

"Yeah?"

"I'm still getting a ring, right?"


End file.
